The Dean of Doom series (companion thread)

[T-Rex]

2 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 

TBF, I don't I think its entirely wrong to review wads through a modern lens. It's a way to see which wad has stood the test of time better than it's contemporaries. Alien Vendetta is from similar era (only 4 years newer than Requiem) and Dean gave it a high score which means in his opinion, AV stood the test of time much better.

 

Also speaking about Plutonia and Hell Revealed, I have different opinion. While the average map in HR isn't super hard or anything, the hardest maps are vastly harder than anything Plutonia throws. Post Mortem isn't just barely harder than Go 2 It. It's magnitudes harder. Resistance is Futile I find to be around the same level of difficulty as Go 2 It (it's shorter and lighter than Go 2 It, but has more nastier Cyberdemon placement), but there are atleast 8-10 maps in HR that I find harder than Resistance is Futile.

Yeah, but I really feel that MtPain27 has dunked on wads that are underappreciated nowadays, citing them as not worth playing any more, such as Memento Mori. Granted, it's rough around the edges in a bunch of the maps, but so is TNT Evilution, which he sort of gave a glowing review. I know he has a personal bias, I mean, Mount Pain, a level I dislike greatly as it is a textbook example of fake difficulty, is his favourite. I won't say he's wrong to find something he likes about that map. Different strokes for different folks.

 

Post Mortem is undoubtedly brutal, moreso if you're playing on vanilla and in UV since saving your game is impossible as it triggers the savegame buffer overflow, but in Go 2 It, enemies can easily block your escape routes, and if that happens, you're screwed. The parts I died the most are the arachnotron/spider mastermind barricade where the yellow key pillar lays, the arch-vile nest that gets unleashed after grabbing the red key, and speaking of which, three of the 13 cyberdemons (all appear in all difficulty levels, mind you, compare that to HR where the highest number of cybies below UV are 8 in HMP and 3 on ITYTD/HNTR), are placed in cramped rooms and trying to BFG them without an invulnerability is suicidal. So yeah, I find Go 2 It to be extremely chaotic than Resistance is Futile, so many things can go awry if the RNG doesn't play in your favour, and I find the cyberdemon placement to just be cruel to the utmost degree (though in HR's Resistance is Futile there's that cyberdemon guarding one switch in a cramped room). 8 - 10 maps, I think that's too much as there are only a handful of maps that really lay the hurt on me than Plutonia could, least in my opinion.

Edited September 7, 2023 by T-Rex

[Gez]

Wow that was a lot of words.

 

 

On the pistol start vs. continuous debate, I think there is one thing to consider: there's actually two different kinds of pistol starts. Scenario 1: you're working on a megawad with other people. You received a map for playtesting. You pistol-start it, take some notes, write some feedback, and then go back to doing other things. Scenario 2: you're pistol-starting every single map in a megawad, one after the other, in one long session, and you even do it twice.

 

Is it any wonder that some repetitive grinding situations, like for example shotgunning barons in tight corridors, would be a lot more aggravating in scenario 2 than in scenario 1?

Edited September 7, 2023 by Gez

[Akagi666]

I strongly believe that good art doesn't require its audience to make excuses for it. You don't listen to the Beatles and start making excuses about how recording techniques weren't as advanced in the 60s, you just listen to the music. You don't look at a Picasso painting and start making excuses about the kinds of paintbrushes they had back then. As soon as you have to start making excuses about historical context, tools at the time etc. it should be a red flag that the subject isn't actually good. Plutonia came out in 1996 and it's just...good. Not good if you play it a particular way, save or don't save. No excuses are needed about the development tools they used or any thing like that. It stands on its own.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Akagi666

[T-Rex]

1 hour ago, Akagi666 said:

I strongly believe that good art doesn't require its audience to make excuses for it. You don't listen to the Beatles and start making excuses about how recording techniques weren't as advanced in the 60s, you just listen to the music. You don't look at a Picasso painting and start making excuses about the kinds of paintbrushes they had back then. As soon as you have to start making excuses about historical context, tools at the time etc. it should be a red flag that the subject isn't actually good. Plutonia came out in 1996 and it's just...good. Not good if you play it a particular way, save or don't save. No excuses are needed about the development tools they used or any thing like that. It stands on its own.

No one's dunking on Plutonia. Plutonia is by far a good megawad from 1996, for the most part, since I find Hunted to be a crudely done concept of the arch-vile maze, which still makes sense, given the time it came out. However, for someone to make a statement that it is accessible for casual gamers on Ultra-Violence, that doesn't fly as it downplays the intentions of the Casali Brothers. Besides, this isn't about Plutonia, this is about Dean of Doom focusing too much on the worst aspects of some megawads from the mid-late 90s that are classics and even been regarded as the best back in their times without acknowledging that they can be fun just because he pistol-starts all the levels on UV as it just discourages other people getting into Doom to give them a try.

Edited September 7, 2023 by T-Rex

[Akagi666]

6 minutes ago, T-Rex said:

No one's dunking on Plutonia. Plutonia is by far a good megawad from 1996, for the most part, since I find Hunted to be a crudely done concept of the arch-vile maze, which still makes sense, given the time it came out. However, for someone to make a statement that it is accessible for casual gamers on Ultra-Violence, that doesn't fly as it downplays the intentions of the Casali Brothers. Besides, this isn't about Plutonia, this is about Dean of Doom focusing too much on the worst aspects of some megawads from the mid-late 90s that are classics and even been regarded as the best back in their times as it just discourages other people getting into Doom to give them a try.

Plutonia is just an example here, not a reply to your post. I'm talking about people making all these excuses for 90s wads that they were good back in the day and the tools back then were shite etc. Who cares if something was good or not back in the day? If it's good now is what matters. Most of those wads from the 90s are garbage, which is why you see people making all these excuses. Good levels don't need excuses.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Akagi666

[Razza]

What was with all the talk about MtPain "personally attacking" mappers in this episode? You guys made it sound like he was ripping into someone as badly as he did with Gene Bird, but the worst I heard was mild frustration with some very legitimate sounding gripes he had with the wad. Either I went blind and deaf, or people are a bit too sensitive over a bit of criticism. Judging by previous discussions about wads he hasn't liked, it seems to be a lot of the former

[Zulk RS]

1 minute ago, Razza said:

 Either I went blind and deaf, or people are a bit too sensitive over a bit of criticism. Judging by previous discussions about wads he hasn't liked, it seems to be a lot of the former

 

... You've gone blind and deaf?

[whybmonotacrab]

Yeah, can someone please actually cite the alleged personal attacks? I heard some mild ribbing at absolute worst.

[LSC Lasico]

24 minutes ago, whybmonotacrab said:

Yeah, can someone please actually cite the alleged personal attacks? I heard some mild ribbing at absolute worst.

It's either one of the two options.

 

1) Sand in the eyes type o' stuff made to disguise the fact that their argument is very weak.

 

2) They liked this wad, and consider a negative criticism of it to be a criticism towards their tastes, and therefore, to their persona (from their POV) and then project this perception of a personal insult onto the review and MT pain itself.

 

Im only just guessing, in reality I aint know shit about the lives of other people, but what I do know is that I agree with this.

Edited September 7, 2023 by LSC Lasico

[VaibhavRM]

@Helm, you put into words exactly what I wanted to convey but couldn't find 🫡

Edited September 7, 2023 by VaibhavRM

[baja blast rd.]

A couple 10x10 clips I had.

 

Here's a comfortable strategy for this area in map05. When enemies are all back-facing, I like looking for approaches that begin by waking one enemy up and making it infight with something else.

 

 

Also reality-ing this part of map09. (I wasn't planning on it but just went with it.) This is not easy to do because it requires controlling movement speed finely on that very bumpy floor, but it shows that 'moving at some speed between walk and a sprint' is a very important skill because it's not really possible especially in the first half without doing that.

 

 

[Uni]

Good review by Mtpain. Requiem is a mixed bag and has more sentimental value than actually being good. It has its moments but the stinkers in it are some of the worst maps I have ever played from a 90's WAD. I replayed it again because of the episode and oh boy is MAP12 a massive speedbump. Aside from its name and kind of cool text file, the map is pretty much a mess. Also as much as I like Capellan's mapping style, his short maps toward the end felt out of place to me.

[Kwisior]

1 hour ago, Uni said:

Also as much as I like Capellan's mapping style, his short maps toward the end felt out of place to me

That's because maps 20, 25 and 26 were intended for Demonfear, but had to be put in to fill the spots and get the project done after a prolonged period of no maps being submitted.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Kwisior

[T-Rex]

4 hours ago, Uni said:

Good review by Mtpain. Requiem is a mixed bag and has more sentimental value than actually being good. It has its moments but the stinkers in it are some of the worst maps I have ever played from a 90's WAD. I replayed it again because of the episode and oh boy is MAP12 a massive speedbump. Aside from its name and kind of cool text file, the map is pretty much a mess. Also as much as I like Capellan's mapping style, his short maps toward the end felt out of place to me.

Requiem is actually pretty good and fun, but yeah, there a few maps that sucked. I'm actually surprised Militant Reprisal did not get the dunce cap title as I find it to be the worst map in the megawad. I mean, it's a jumbled mess of themes that results in one big ugly sprawlfest that suffers from its own bloat, so many of the secrets don't make any sense, like there are secrets that have nothing in them, there's a yellow key for some reason, but not a single door requires one, and speaking of the secrets, there are 23 in total, and 3 of them are inaccessible due to level design flaws, for example, there's a sector where a door is supposed to open, but instead it's the floor that gets raised. So yeah, I think Map 12 is worse than Map 21, which has a neat concept, but was brought down by its own design errors. Had there been actual communication between the team members involved in the project and much more care and attention to testing out the levels before they've been accepted, Requiem would have been a legendary mapset.

[Akagi666]

14 hours ago, whybmonotacrab said:

Yeah, can someone please actually cite the alleged personal attacks? I heard some mild ribbing at absolute worst.

Still waiting to see the personal attacks. Doubt we will lol. 

[Akagi666]

I watched the whole thing just now and didn't see anything I would call overly mean or a "personal attack." I think this is just people being thin-skinned. The wad did look extremely bad and like it was mostly shotgunning barons in hallways, which is what I expected from a 90's wad. I don't think Mt Pain is particularly mean. His reviews of maps are really short and I feel like he rushes through them without saying much. The reviews don't dig deep enough to be useful to me. Still don't get why people are seething about it though.

[Andromeda]

44 minutes ago, Akagi666 said:

The wad did look extremely bad and like it was mostly shotgunning barons in hallways, which is what I expected from a 90's wad.

Incredibly reductionist take, but understandable if it's based solely on the video.

[Akagi666]

4 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

Incredibly reductionist take, but understandable if it's based solely on the video.

Solely from the video yeah, I avoid this stuff like the plague. Any thing where you wander around maze like levels shotgunning barons and pinkies is a skip for me. I don't know why people have such reverence for 90's stuff cause all of it that I've seen or played has been garbage. People dickride Memento Mori all the time, but it was legit one of the worst wads I have ever played.

[LSC Lasico]

27 minutes ago, Akagi666 said:

Solely from the video yeah, I avoid this stuff like the plague. Any thing where you wander around maze like levels shotgunning barons and pinkies is a skip for me. I don't know why people have such reverence for 90's stuff cause all of it that I've seen or played has been garbage. People dickride Memento Mori all the time, but it was legit one of the worst wads I have ever played.

Honestly, running around in mazes and shotgunning stuff seems like my jam. I never played these wads, but I think I will like them.

[Akagi666]

2 minutes ago, LSC Lasico said:

Honestly, running around in mazes and shotgunning stuff seems like my jam. I never played these wads, but I think I will like them.

Go for it then man, the 90's has you covered. More power to you if you like that, I just find it dreadfully boring.

[LSC Lasico]

1 hour ago, Akagi666 said:

Go for it then man, the 90's has you covered. More power to you if you like that, I just find it dreadfully boring.

Understandable 

[Michael Jensen]

On the topic of filling Requiem with previously released maps, Map23: Hatred by Dario Casali appeared, among other Casali maps, on a coverdisc with the October 1996 issue of PC Review magazine as Vault_fd.wad, around 8 months before Requiem came out. The only differences are a unique sky, the SS sprites, which are modified to remove their face and hands, and sound replacements for the SS and opening doors, which use the IoS pain sound for whatever reason. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Michael Jensen

[Gez]

On vendredi 8 septembre 2023 at 5:25 PM, Michael Jensen said:

Vault_fd.wad,

Interesting name. Was it rejected from Final Doom?

[Michael Jensen]

4 hours ago, Gez said:

Interesting name. Was it rejected from Final Doom?

I was thinking about what the fd meant and somehow never thought of that. However, according to the coverdisks contents file, the level was made after Plutonia was finished. The wads textfile says that it is a "taste of what Final Doom is all about", maybe that's why it's called that?

 

There is a rejected Evilution submission on the coverdisk, nomercy.wad, a Map30 replacement. 

[erzboesewicht]

Just for fun I played "Den of the Skull" (the map MtPain27 considers the worst) again, and yeah, it's quite a bad map. Some of the gimmicks are interesting (I somewhat liked the idea of the fight with the AV from the water pool, but at that moment you already probably have a BFG so it's very short) but most are simply "what?" material :). And it's an extreme example of the "room after room" approach where the different areas have almost nothing in common and aren't interconnected at all. In general I agree somewhat with MtPain27's review, Requiem is a very uneven wad, and I remember when I first played it I was a bit disappointed because despite of so many technical tricks it falls short of the better stuff from that era like MM2, Eternal Doom and even HR.

 

But just two cents about the question "why people like 90s wads": For me it's the wild experimentalism many of these wads (let's say until the mid-2000s) show. Some of the Requiem maps definitely deliver in that point, as did the first Community Chests and the Memento Moris. Of course many of these experiments fail, see Den of the Skull or several Memento Mori (1) maps. But in general many of these maps are unpredictable and have also a wide variety of combat scenarios, even if some of them (shotgunning barons haha) don't match exactly the definition of "good combat".

[dasho]

7 minutes ago, erzboesewicht said:

But just two cents about the question "why people like 90s wads"

 

Oh boy I get to use it again

 

[Gez]

I'm not sure exactly how the particular niche of Doom mapping will ever be perfected enough to "reproduce nature", at least for those levels that do feature combat against demons.

[dasho]

2 hours ago, Gez said:

I'm not sure exactly how the particular niche of Doom mapping will ever be perfected enough to "reproduce nature", at least for those levels that do feature combat against demons.

 

Clearly the entire quote isn't meant to be taken literally in the context of Doom. This would be like complaining about the sterile, formulaic, and CGI-laden nature of modern movies only to be told that The Avengers aren't real.

Edited September 11, 2023 by dasho

[valkiriforce]

On 9/10/2023 at 11:57 AM, dasho said:

 

Oh boy I get to use it again

This accurately describes my early mapping experiences - I'm rather curious about the source of this image (sorry if this is off-topic).

[dasho]

9 minutes ago, valkiriforce said:

This accurately describes my early mapping experiences - I'm rather curious about the source of this image (sorry if this is off-topic).